Joseph C. wrote:Tesla are proposing to use liquid-cooled cables to reduce the thickness and prevent heat problems.

That would be very useful for buses, lorries and eventually planes that will each need gigawatt-hours of charge.

Edit: $4,000 for the total price of the upgraded (5KW instead of 2KW with peak of 7KW) Powerwall plus installation costs.

They are already in use at the new mountain view supercharger. this should allow them to bump the power to beyond 135kw. they will still need to taper of course (with current packs)

they are about to rollout fastchargers which are dual 60kw dc chargers. like a supercharger mini that can be installed in more places (still needs 3 phase power though). good for fleet use and high end hotels and restaurants and stores

Undersize the cable to reduce weight and make it easy to handle will reduce the efficiency of power transmission and create unwanted heat. Then expend more energy to cool the cable?

What happened to the idea of using sweet robot arms to carry a properly sized conductor?

Perhaps at current application sizes it is inefficient and unneeded but if they scale it up to 200 or more kilowatts it starts to become important. I'd imagine there is all sorts of trade-offs involved vis-a-vis robotics versus liquid-cooling cables.

Robotic arms could have great costs for 2,500 plus superchargers, their duty cycle would be far more extreme than a home owner who plugs in once a day (a supercharger would be plugged in ten times or more per day). The weight of a very large cable might require powerful motors depending upon the design. All that adds complexity and reliability issues.

I think the more important thing is that large vehicles and planes would benefit enormously from liquid-cooled cables. It makes the handling of megawatt plus cables much less cumbersome. And large commercial planes will need gigawatt-sized cables to charge their batteries. Now that Siemens have got electric propulsion working on planes producing 5KW per KG continuously, the next hurdle after battery energy density will be how to charge them. Robotics will probably be required for planes but having the cables much smaller still makes everything much easier.

Perhaps at current application sizes it is inefficient and unneeded but if they scale it up to 200 or more kilowatts it starts to become important. I'd imagine there is all sorts of trade-offs involved vis-a-vis robotics versus liquid-cooling cables.

Ok, I can begin to see some validity at the extreme end of the power scale. If there is literally no other way of handling the cable weight then a tradeoff of efficiency vs usability starts to make sense.

“It’s not going to happen in a year from now. It’s going to be hard. But I think we can get down to five to 10 minutes,” Straubel said in an interview with MIT Technology Review. He noted that the current superchargers, which deliver 120 kilowatts of electricity, “seemed pretty crazy even 10 years ago.” Conventional public charging stations deliver well under 10 kilowatts.

Straubel says Tesla has been able to rapidly improve charging because it designs and builds all of the key components itself, including the chargers, the electronics for monitoring the battery pack, and a cooling system for the battery. They’re all optimized to work together in a way that’s not easy for systems built to accommodate many different models of electric vehicles...

Achieving five-minute charges will require not only further improving the charging system, but also improving the interface with the electrical grid. As it is, only some places on the grid can handle 120-kilowatt charging. Drawing large amounts of power from the grid also incurs demand charges from the utility, increasing the cost of the system.

Storing solar power in batteries in the charging station could also be helpful to operators of the power grid (see “Wind Turbines, Battery Included, Can Keep Power Supplies Stable”). They could provide utilities a way to moderate fluctuations on the grid, something that’s becoming more important as more intermittent sources of power, such as solar and wind, are added. Tesla plans to test such a system soon in California. It could charge utilities for this service, which, Straubel says, could help offset the cost of the stations.

.....Straubel says Tesla has been able to rapidly improve charging because it designs and builds all of the key components itself, including the chargers, the electronics for monitoring the battery pack, and a cooling system for the battery. They’re all optimized to work together in a way that’s not easy for systems built to accommodate many different models of electric vehicles...

He is ignoring the fact that they don't make the cells themselves yet either !
A 10 min charge on a 3Ahr cell implies a 6+C charge rate ?
I will be impressed if the cells can take that frequently and survive the warranty period.

The shine seems to have come off Tesla a little.
Heading back towards $200 again ?

Came across this newly published article on Tesla and its cash issues.
I notice sometimes when people respond to my posts they respond with an article dated from like 2 years ago? I just want to remind people that when they start reading any webpage on the internet first check the date which will always be listed on ANY web page that's worth reading that can be considered proper news...http://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesla ... sis-2015-8

I don't mean to sound negative in any way about Tesla but remember Benjamin Graham famous quote...

The father of value investing, Benjamin Graham, explained this concept by saying that in the short run, the market is like a voting machine--tallying up which firms are popular and unpopular. But in the long run, the market is like a weighing machine--assessing the substance of a company. The message is clear: What matters in the long run is a company's actual underlying business performance and not the investing public's fickle opinion about its prospects in the short run.

Forget about a mere 15 percent increase in stock value -- how about a 90 percent one? That's how bullish Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas is on Tesla.

In a note this morning, Jonas has increased the price target for Tesla to $465 from $280 (the stock is currently at about $243). The key reason behind this is what he calls "Tesla Mobility, an app-based, on-demand mobility service." The race for autonomous driving is nothing new, with tech giants such as Apple and Google also making a push in this realm, but the report says Tesla is well positioned to get large market share. Jonas is telling clients that "Tesla is uniquely positioned, in our view, to solve the biggest flaw in the auto industry, <4% utilization, via an app-based, on-demand mobility service.".......snip

Favorite Quote: "This is L.A., sugar. There is no 'over the top." --- Chris Erskine

Hillhater wrote:nerves of steel required at the moment.
Did any real believers buy back in as they went under $200 ??

Yes. Someone posted screenshot of his purchase at $195. I went all in on call options with a Jan 2016 expiration when it hit $235. Would have been better if I had waited a day, but they are up 12.87% already and my plan is to capture the upside from the Model X launch, which still hasn't happened. So I'm feeling pretty good right now.

Best Wishes!

Mitch

Buying a new Tesla? Use a referral code and get six month's of free supercharging. Please consider using our referral code:https://ts.la/lynnem96959

The reason I'm posting now is that IMO now is an excellent time to make long term (1-3 years) investment. The simplest and least risky way to do that is to buy shares.

If you feel comfortable with more risk (be careful!), I think that now is also an excellent (relatively safe) time to buy Jan 2018 Call Options (called LEAPS). A pretty safe strike price would be from about $200 to about $230 (lower is considered less risky).

Best Wishes!

Mitch

Buying a new Tesla? Use a referral code and get six month's of free supercharging. Please consider using our referral code:https://ts.la/lynnem96959

Hillhater wrote:Quite a Rodeo ride going on here currently .....Tesla now over $250, that 40% increase since Dec 1st
Can anyone identify the factors that kicked this rally off ?.....Trump ?

Yes its Trump, don't under estimate how important cheap electricity is to an electric car company.

Its the same reason VW announced its new all-electric car manufacturing plant be built in the USA a few weeks after Trump won the election, Germany has retail electricity prices almost double USAs and its increasing every year.. its going to be a lot harder making and selling the electric cars in Germany now may as well just concentrate on the USA market where electricity is sure to stay cheaper for a longer period of time.https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/22/volks ... a-in-2021/

I dont doubt the Trump factor is part of the reason, but its unlikely to be the main factor.
Trump is also a supporter of Fossil fuels, which should weigh against Tesla and boost other energy stocks to a similar extent...but it has not.